School’s out. Well, sorta. Other than a few projects that have gotta be done and leftover bits of housekeeping matters, it’s all been folded up and chucked into boxes to be forgotten over the short summer break we’ve got. I am thrilled that we’ve finally got a bit of time to put our feet up, let down our hair and for me, be absolutely lazy lousy hungry like I don’t give a shit.

And that also means lots of brunches and lunches. One thing about being in Singapore is that it’s too hot to walk. I mean it. I love walking to places. It saves bus/train money, its good exercise and it’s always healthy to have some ‘me-time’, get some fresh air whilst you catch up on some of your favourite iPod playlists. But in this humidity and oppressive heat, it’s a one-way ticket to skin cancer, heat exhaustion (for me at least) and fainting spells. So it’s kinda great when people offer rides to those hard-to-get cafés and all that. When they invite you along, ride included, you do the right thing and say yes, and then, BRING THE BANTER (and the appropriate appetite).

So finally I got whisked to the Singapore Turf area where the fortunate few ponce around on beautiful horses on the race course and all that. I had a right mind to turn up in riding trousers and a Ralph Lauren polo. Tucked deep into Fairways Drive situated in Bukit Timah Saddle Club is this lovely, charming colonial house Riders Cafe. The name is simple, direct, speaks for itself and hence, exudes that individuality no other can replicate simply because. It had a nice ring to it as well.

I’d heard quite a bit about their poached eggs here (I rave about eggs benedict so I suppose it’s only natural people recommend the spots where real awesome goods can be found). That was ordered, of course. Two comely ballooned, slightly wobbly, bulbous and comely cloyingly thick molten yolks tenderly shrouded in delicate clouds of milky egg whites, precariously (I mean it) balanced atop two halves of herbed grilled tomatoes, streaks of fried bacon lazying on a bed of sourdough. [pause] And then the whole thing is just ridiculously and generously doused with hollandaise and bits of chopped parsley. Kill me now. I want to relive that again.

But before this was all sat down very elegantly before me — my eyes all this while are eagerly following every gradual fated movement of that plate’s advancement towards the space directly in front of me — one of me poached eggs decided to make a run for it before it got devoured without a care for finesse. Not so much a run, more like a suicidal backflip. But a poor attempt at that.

It went … flop, SPLAT –…–squelch…a puncture somewhere; yolk bleeding. A pool of runny yellowy orange yolk gets bigger and bigger with each millisecond that passes. ABSOLUTE SILENCE. Shock on one end, amusement on the other. The pool of warm yolk is getting to the size of my palm now and threatens to make its way close to my glass of ice water. I’m willing someone to move or say something. I think I see a bit of billowy egg white shudder. THERE’S A CRIME SCENE ON MY TABLE. Somebody do sumfing! Finally, the waitress moves. She apologises. Someone else comes to clean it up. Too late. By then, my whole table’s quaking with giggles all around and I’m doubled over, howling with laughter and grabbing my sides to stop the stitches. I’ve laughed so hard tears have actually sprung into my eyes. Hilarious! Laughter’s so infectious at this point, even the willowy dude cleaning up that murdered mess of egg can’t stop a grin from forming. Accident #1.

A fresh plate of eggs benedict arrive soon after. We wonder if both eggs got replaced or merely one. That thought doesn’t even last a second as I move in onto my plate and gently pierce the fattest part of poached egg with the tip of my knife. Like a surgeon I carefully make a small incision, then move the knife around to spread the waterfall of yoke that floods all of the bacon beneath it. The sourdough slowly soaks up the thick orange yoke. I can’t help thinking, at this point, that the act of eating a poached egg is quite so sensual; I am glad it requires an undivided attention that my focus doesn’t deviate away to check if anyone is observing me. I would not have been able to stop a blush otherwise.

Across the table, the same thing’s happening with a plate of eggs royale: the make-up of which is pretty much the same except for a substitution of bacon and tomatoes for smoked salmon, avocado and sour cream, all with a side of rocket and asparagus salad. The smoked salmon is soft, creamy and lightly smoked. A mouthful of the eggs royale (although this wasn’t my plate) I could imagine would’ve been flavourful, richly enveloped in runny yoke and reinforced with a comfortingly fluffy bite of brown sourdough. Gorgeous.

Next to me, a boy with a hearty appetite and naturally of good cheer is tucking into a plate of golden hued brioche french toast with smoked bacon, grilled bananas, strawberries and maple syrup. It smells amazing from where I’m sat, buttery, sweet and savoury with that scent of strawberries lightly hanging in the air. I want a bite of that. And I do get offered one. The brioche is so tall and nicely browned, buttered and yes, soaked with maple syrup. The bananas look gloriously caramelised although that still doesn’t convince me to like bananas. The whole dish is a plate of fireworks, its beauty is intense – the colours implore you to take a bite and he seems utterly in his own world when he tucks into it. Oh yea, he washed down this handsome breakfast with a tall glass of peanut butter & jelly smoothie…yea, you heard me right – PBJ smoothie. Intense.

Really intense.

The plates are getting cleared as I slurp up the last bits of my iced cappuccino and it appears the disaster magnet I have somewhere in my aura is still going strong. The same willowly dude picks up my plate which is pretty much wiped clean save some strands of rocket. And like a strong force of attraction between myself and anti-rust metals, the knife comes sliding off it. I could see it just aiming for my lap and my hands were too busy rubbing my food baby so I was just about to surrender my black trousers to grease and hollandaise, when this fine young man with a deft flick of a wrist caught that knife and saved me from Accident #2. What a load of drama, and all for poached eggs.

It’s like it was the damn Rape of the Lock going on or sumfing like that today. Anyhow.

We gotta go back for seconds, and dessert. There’s yet more to be explored.

Considering that I blogged about this place two posts ago and here we are again really says something about this place called Strictly Pancakes. It’s good. I think about it a lot. I don’t hafta wait til Shrove Tuesday – or days of staring at eggs, milk, flour and a buttered hot pan willing it to just work by a twitch of a bewitched nose – to have pancakes.

The first pancake café in Singapore. It’s got me hooked. And it’s so legit I nearly cried when I ate my stack of pancakes.

I sat through 3 hours of class today grumpy as shite because I was hungry and deprived of viable options of food. It came to the sorry point that I made a (disturbing) passing comment to a girlfriend of mine, ‘I’m so hungry right now I could sink my teeth into your shoulder blade.’ She was wearing a bareback top. She now thinks I’m weird beyond weird. But that’s fine. We went halves over a plate of pancakes and I think we’re still the coolest pals as gal pals can be. We all find reasons to be amiable with each other in this world, now don’t we? If it involves food, I suppose. Let’s just all try to accept this fact of life and live with each others’ idiosyncrasies.

I’m so glad that pancakes don’t take a million years to whip up so food gets put on your table fairly quick. Three baskets of mysteriously spiced and seasoned chips glide onto the table. Then six cups of iced tap water. A bout of thumb twiddling, of utterly awkward silence and staring at mobile phones willing someone to beep or ring you so as to give you something to do to fill this ridiculously useless and unwelcome period of waiting. ‘Hi I am hungry and waiting for my food and I don’t want to do anything else like talk stupid when I just want to wait for my food.’ Other tables are noisily clanking their knives and forks, cutting up fluffy clouds of pancakes heavily and indecently doused with maple syrup, participating in unimportant sometimes polite chatter between mouthfuls of deliciousness, every bit of movement and noise pisses me off. I am HANGRY. Gimme food!

Then the sound of footsteps, and ka-ching ka-ching. It’s flipping pancake jackpot. I’ve never seen a more beautiful plate of pancakes. Mine don’t even come close, possibly because I never make chocolate pancakes. It’s almost unmentionable in my house. Pancakes must be pancakes, white and fluffy, uncorrupted by what we know as cocoa powder. Oh bugger that. These were glorious. Chocolate sauce, dripping custard, dusting of icing sugar, mini chocolate chips and wet juicy pneumatic and squidgy brandied dark cherries. Hello beautiful, come to Mama! The glorious Blackforest stack. I finally got to have a taste of this notorious babies. But what a shame that Strictly Pancakes had a bad day with their freezer and so, NO ICE CREAM. 20% off though. Yea okay. I’m easy like that.

Across the table, a friend was tucking into Lemon Curd for Nerds which looked suspiciously similar to our Blackforest stack minus a few key ingredients. Chocolate pancakes + lemon curd which resembled, in aesthetics and taste, wet custard but was delicious nonetheless. Would’ve liked the lemon curd to be a little more tart and lemony but figured it might not have worked too well with pancakes that generously rich in chocolate!

I’d love to share what the others ate but I was so busy inhaling my half of the Blackforest (I don’t think I looked up from my plate, okay maybe twice just to check the progress of others around me) I didn’t give two flying fish about getting clicks of their pancakes. But if you wanted to know what they ordered, you can check back to the first post of this café here.

What a great close to the week. The goblin in my stomach is appeased. Until the next food adventures, peace.

TGIF.

At first I got distracted by my own pancakes photos, looking at them I relived the moment. And then I got distracted by the scent of coffee (I’m sat in my school café) and just shortly after I got distracted by some cute guy with big guns trodding on by. So now I’m back (even though I never really left!) and I give you this.

My salvation last Saturday to soothe a hungry soul, and one who missed out sorely on Shrove Tuesday. Yes I confess I was too busy to even slap around some batter and flip a couple of pancakes. I’m embarrassed (that goes without saying) but not so much since it opened up the opportunity for a virgin voyage to Strictly Pancakes. And they were good. Nothing like homemade pancakes but considering these were done fresh 5 minutes after ordering, I’m quite impressed at the soft buttery vanilla-y fluffiness of them pancakes. And their range of assorted butters (garlic & herb I liked much) really made this place for me. It really worked that there were big comfy sofas on the 2nd floor up a narrow creaky flight of stairs, lit by rooftop skylights and completely ruled by a chill-out-shutup-and-eat kind of atmosphere. Nice.

Strictly Pancakes. Strictly pleasure oh my days. And so good for the soul, on a rainy day as this.

Side note: this place does amazing chips. Spiced and well salted. I’m definitely coming back for the chips too which is totally random and so unrelated.

Strictly Pancakes
44A Prinsep Street
S188674

Grey sky, boring day, long wait to next tutorial class, half-drunk cappuccino. C’est ennui! Who says you can’t dream about sweets in the early afternoon…I’m thinking about Oriole.

Short post and so I’m outta here. Have a good day folks.

I’ve been feeling the need to rejuvenate myself lately in every way possible. Even as I type this post, I’m listening to my favourite electro remix playlist on iTunes and am literally replaying each taste of cake in my head. It’s kind of a funky experience. Maybe future tastings of cake for me should be in a soundproof room, ALONE for maximum satisfaction, with professional headphones stuck on blaring house music as I clink clank away on plates and chomp down on petite gâteaux. No? Ok, I’ll hide that thought somewhere else along with my deepest darkest desires.

Royal Copenhagen. A proper noun that sends pleasurable shivers down my spine. And of course, makes me think of terribly feminine and beautiful vintage china. I miss the utter decadence and quirky pop eccentricism at Sketch with their vintage china unembarrassingly showing signs of use. Royal Copenhagen is a little more slick but the cakes were delicious! The service was level-headed and friendly. The room, an oblong-shaped space tucked away awkwardly into a corner of the ladies’ department nonetheless was a nice respite from manic Christmas shoppers. With a backdrop of glass-clinking and delighted chatter soft and bubbling like a glass of Möet, a room awash in crisp sunlight inducing you into a state of airy-fairy frou-frou lightness much like the kiss of a butterfly, afternoon tea begins on a carefree note (plus, you start to realize that size doesn’t matter at all – this is in reference to this oddly shaped tea lounge/cave)…

“There was an Old Person of Rheims,
Who was troubled with horrible dreams;
So, to keep him awake,
they fed him with cake,
Which amused that Old Person of Rheims.” ~ Edward Lear

The past week, my sleep was a tad bit troubled. I was (and actually am still) having a few odd dreams, those that leave you waking up puzzled and constantly mulling about what it meant. My latenights were also giving me unsightly dark eye circles, pale skin and a general lethargy about me. Someone mentioned, who cares about latenights when you’ve got cosmetics?! That’s true. I’m none too bothered about the amount of concealer I go through in a week but oh, something was just missing in my day to day goings-around. So when a friend suggested a cake day-out, I jumped at the chance. I was so glad to go to tea! It felt like ages since I had a good tête-à-tête with those things magically made from flour, fat, eggs, sugar and cream. Ahhh…What better to make one feel a little more alive than the sugar high petite little cakes provide?!

If I could, I would’ve eaten my weight in everything sat behind the cake counter. That’s me talking some crazy I know. Although it sure is hard to be sensible when one has a severe case of sweet teeth (plural or singular?). Imagine if one fine day all cake maniacs were to let themselves go and you saw me right at the frontline of this lets-eat-all-the-cake-in-the-world campaign, I’d make the tabloids in the most disgusting way known to humankind.

We managed four cake slices on our visit to Royal Copenhagen. I thought that was pretty impressive. Each mouthful was slowly savoured but not without wishing that each taste could go on forever. I’m blushing now as I’ve just realised my own greediness – 2 out of 4 cakes were chosen because I insisted I must have matcha cakes or something that’s green. I’m glad my cakemates humoured me. Bless ‘em. Here’s what we had:

Key Lime Pie ~ creamy and melt-in-your-mouth

Chocolate Earl Grey Mousse with Caramel Ganache ~ rich. dirty rich.

Matcha & Morello Cherry Cake ~ this was simply beautiful; gorgeous flavours with a moist denseness from possibly ground almonds & polenta

a personal favourite whatever the rendition ~ Matcha Tiramisu

The last two were of course my favourite. I’m drawn to anything green, purple and black sesame flavoured. I’m fairly simplistic that way I suppose. The key lime tart was also something real jazzy, resulting in a party in my tummy. Delicious, smooth with a good mix of sweet and tart.

Once the final crumb was licked up, I felt like an old car with a fresh engine, purring away and all revved up for the next roadtrip. All I had to do really was give my heels a quick polish, pop on some pearls and off I go. If you hear me complain about tiredness this week, remind me that it’s time for cake! It sure is the best fuel to keep me going for a while.

Royal Copenhagen Tea Lounge
Takashimaya Level 2
391 Orchard Road
S 238872
Singapore
Open Mon-Sun 10:00-21:00

Why a picture of dry-looking toast? And toast of all things. And toast that I didn’t even prepare myself. Before you lay into me, I assure you I’m not going whack. Neither is this blog going bust, nor have I lost my skills to cook or bake.

It’s just I thought I’d mention that one shouldn’t judge a book by its cover (or a toast sandwich by its dry exterior). This toast isn’t dry. In fact, it is sublime, especially when the portions of butter are totally out of this world. I mean it ain’t about spreading the butter for this one, but slabbing it like a deejay on crack.

Kaya toast is such a simple delight, very often taken for granted and overlooked, because it’s a breakfast easily prepared at home. I remember my dad used to pack this in my take-to-school lunchbox untoasted so it stayed fresh and soft until lunchbreak (sometimes he got a little experimental and mixed it with peanut butter. woah, funky.). It isn’t glamorous, it isn’t pretty and it surely isn’t expensive. It’s homey and old world. Some might shoot darts at me for choosing to reminisce the old days and breathe in some local flavours at a coffee/breakfast chain of all places, known as Ya Kun Kaya Toast. But I ain’t a fussy hussy and I actually think this place is pretty good.

But what on earth is a kaya toast anyway? It’s thinly sliced soft brown bread toasted til airy and crispy, spread with nyona kaya jam or coconut jam then pressed together as a sandwich with slabs of salted butter between the bits. Bite into it, it starts to crumble like good pastry; it’s creamy where the thick custardy jam is, crispy at the edges but smooth and buttery with a good depth of flavour from the salt. Me describing it does it no justice. But that feeling of sitting on a stool at a coffee stall with a coffee/tea and a plate of fresh kaya toast? A quintessential Singaporean thing to do in the morn’. No doubt about it, I slowly realize how I’ve missed this. It’s a truly unique breakfast experience.

And yea, the coffee (although not the best and not exactly wonderful or powerful enough) is fairly decent. I just love that local coffees, when you ask for it iced, comes with a bit of froth at the top. Froth….purrrrr~~~

In London, living in the East was something rather coveted by the people in my social circle (partly because we all wanted to be each others’ neighbour). And true enough, I loved being an Eastie bummer. Having a choice of local Vietnamese on Old Street/Kingsland Road, The Breakfast Club and The Diner literally a stone’s throw from my apartment, some cool haunts we never failed to end up in Hoxton/Dalston plus quirky vintage shops of Brick Lane pretty much stretching out its arms beckoning me in…the East was it for me. So vibrant and alive, so weird and wondrous, so intensely insane and buzzing, grimey, damp and unkempt. The East, like an ever-repeating collage of faded signs, cracked paint jobs, crumbling walls and random dotting of dog poop, like a crazed soothsayer who can’t shut up has much to tell. A place with that much character is not easily forgotten but forever burned into the back of your eyelids, reminding you that at every turn there is a story to uncover. Whatever it was, it was home, for a while at least.

In my hometown, I’m also an Eastie. And here, to live in the East leaves very little in terms of cuisine to be desired! At least, that was what I was told before we moved into this area five years ago. East Singapore has much to offer in terms of dining areas, brimming with little eateries, restaurants, traditional Chinese bakeries and hawker centres offering the famous selection of local dishes like Katong laksa, fried Hokkien prawn mee and Hainanese chicken rice. You can never go hungry if you live in the East. And that rings ever more true if you work in the East. The past few weeks I’ve been hired as my sister’s PA. No, don’t even dare think it is glamorous. I’ve also started helping out one of her friends as a researcher to source the market for environmentally green products, etc. When the brain’s working and the pen’s tapping away, one gets hungry very easily. Moreish and so dastardly peckish. Our office is situated on East Coast Road, quite the food hub I must say. This stretch of road offers the traditional to the modern, ranging from un-air-conditioned outdated coffee shops to the glass-doored modern restaurants & bars decorated with queer names to the pretentious cafés with an eye for minimalism. It’s got it all.

A famous little Hainanese coffee/cake shop here is Chin Mee Chin Confectionary introduced to me by A my sister of course who is up to her arms deep in the knowledge of good local haunts. It’s the only coffee shop she visits in the area and although my iced kopi C (iced coffee sweetened with Carnation milk…I’m still getting the hang of all the codes for ordering local coffee) wasn’t the best, CMC (as it’s commonly known in this area) is beloved by the locals who patronize it for a traditional Southeast Asian slash Chinese breakfast old-school style. And what would that be, you’re asking? Coffee + kaya toast + half-boiled eggs seasoned to your own taste with ground white pepper and Chinese soy sauce. Kaya is coconut jam, a thick and lusciously rich jam of a custard-like texture made from coconut, egg yolks and sugar and flavoured with pandan leaves. I may not have tried CMC’s kaya toast (we were too stuffed after a big fat lunch), but the locals (and even some foreigners) swear that CMC’s locally made kaya, all made from scratch within the shop, is simply the nation’s best. I peered at a neighbouring table’s kaya toast and it looked mouthwateringly good for sure, slabbed with loads of butter onto a toasted bun sliced in two, this is Singapore’s version of butter & jam on hot cross buns I suppose!

Because I had become a hippopotamus post-lunch, I did not eat much in this little un-air-conditioned hole-in-the-wall (only a coffee & a small cupcake). But that didn’t stop me from getting swept off my feet by the understated 1950s old world charm it exuded. It is certainly a nostalgic jewel of a find with ceiling fans, tables with marble tops and dark wooden legs, floral-patterned mosaic tiles across the walls and tiny green tiles on the floor which reminded me so much of the music room of an old piano teacher of mine. It’s even got the ol’ shophouse metal shutters for doors! People sit around comfortably, elbows on the tables because they don’t give a damn and slurp coffee out of porcelain mugs just like in the old days. From the yuppies who stop by during their lunchbreak, to the locals who are well chum with the aunties who run the shop, to little kids with faces glued to the glass cake display box to tourists seeking out authentic local flavours to curious weirdos like me, CMC welcomes everyone without discrimination (except maybe one of the coffee aunties who was cranky as an old cow!).

CMC is a place of so much character and personality, aged but riveting like a fine wine, hardworking, honest and fondly remembered like a good woman. It captivates me, and I’m certain it’s the same for many others! A true local favourite.

Wander in into this shop serving up just the bare essentials from interior to menu, walk down memory lane and feel like a child yet again. I could find nothing in there that disappointed me or upset me in any way. Simplicity at its best and a human character the Chinese value most.

Chin Mee Chin Confectionery
204 East Coast Road
Singapore
Open Tues-Sun 730am – 430pm

•••

And just another photo of something local snapped on the same day when A took her old box-type Mercedes to the car workshop…How old school, eh.

*photo taken on a Diana F+

On a hot humid day, frustrated by the Niagara falls of beaded sweat rolling down your cheeks, nose, neck and pretty much every surface of your body, you need a cool respite from this heat. Somewhere with good strong a/c blowing quite furiously, away from the glare of the sun, a shadowy womb-like space pocketed away from the monstrous flow of city traffic. That’s exactly what bad-hair-day-me needs! And I called S out to join me.

Before this island city state got so sophisticated and up with the times, our coffee culture was really just hanging in Old Town-style coffee houses, kopitiams or coffee shops. If you needed coffee on a go (this was before Starbucks decided to take over the world), you had your coffee in a plastic bag and a plastic straw for easy drinking. It was kampong style – cheap, feasible and practical! These days, (and I do not insinuate that kampong style has left us, in fact kampong style is still my favourite) the world of coffee is meticulous, artful, inventive, time-consuming and also a project of aesthetics. The new generation of coffee houses/cafés (which I am rediscovering since I’ve come home) resemble exhibition spaces, offering an eclectic, carefully selected and curated collection of artwork, reading materials, furniture, interior decoration and design, curious objects for sale or simple ogling – a breeding ground for the quiet, thoughtful and inspired. Such is a café I learnt about from Ladyironchef’s blog – the Hairloom & Caramel.

Shops with a combi/mixed concept also really appeal to me. Bookshop cafés, boutique cafés, workshop bar cafés, library galleries, etc. Hairloom & Caramel, as the name suggests, is a salon and café. I might’ve gotten some bits of my hair chopped off to form bangs, but I didn’t get it done here. What I did get to try, however, was ice cold, sweet and came with a straw – really all that I craved for in this heat. If you want to find out more about the salon, or the menu and promotions, check out the link here.

Ice cold, creamy (and ice creamy), generous, smooth, rolling about on your tongue…fire dragons in S and I got appeased. Unfortunately, I was too hot and flustered to eat anything. These iced floats sufficed; they were so awesome I couldn’t ask for anything more. I would definitely wish for a personal mini bar H&C in my bedroom wardrobe for emergency float calls.

Signature Vita Plum (a plummy vitagen drink)

Yuzu Frost (terribly refreshing and spot on for yuzu lovers!)

An eclectic shop dressed in vibrant wallpaper, a cocktail of furnitures, dangling lamps and things, draws a motley crew to it like ants to a sugar jar.

C’est bon!

Comfy chairs with signs of aging on them. That I love. Must visit again, fact!

Hairloom & Caramel
Salon + Café
100 Beach Road
#01-52 Shaw Towers
Singapore 189702

I met up with Alessio and Hilda at William Curley a while back. When I first moved to London, William Curley was one of the first few cafes/chocolatiers/patisseries I heard about but somehow never found time to head that way for a little look-see. It’s a bit out of the way considering I lived in the East but when I stopped by, I was enchanted. It’s a charming area speckled with beautiful furniture and chandelier light shops. I would’ve stopped to take some photographs of these shops but it was raining a little too persistently for me to fuss around in my bag for the camera. The rain, the grey and the puddles; maybe it was because I was leaving but talk about sympathetic background!

Bursting into William Curley a little late and windswept, shaking off the rain and putting the brolly away, the humble shop draws you into its comforting embrace. Warm yellow lights, a welcoming interior, ice cream and little sweet treats to delight. Not to mention Hilda’s little papoose. I seriously think she might be the cutest toddler I’ve ever met!

A chocolate ‘statue’. What an artwork! It was intense. Made all of chocolate, gold-painted and garnished with gold foil. I stuck my nose in real close to have a good look because I’m curious like a cat. This might have made the lady behind the counter terribly nervous. She warned me it was all chocolate and to be careful for it was very fragile (which I knew of course). But pardon moi, the hungry crazy eager look in my eyes must have triggered a few warning bells in her head.

Cheese Soufflé Tart • チイズ　スフレ　タルト

Tropical Entremet

Matcha & Kinako ice cream

I love eating ice cream in the summer. But love it especially when it rains, or snows. Strangely, the inclination to have ice cream when the weather is a little colder becomes so much more of an itch I just must scratch, or die. May have been a wee bit of a shameful affair to say that my first order at Curley was ice cream when there were so many exquisite little gâteaux available. I wasn’t let down anyhow. Kinako is gorgeous. I didn’t quite realize that kinako in ice cream would be quite so velvety and luscious.

William Curley was just about the last café stop in London which was a neat way to round it all up. But big love also to Hurwundeki which stole a few bits of my heart and robbed me a little bit of my soul.

•••

In Cambridge Heath, under the railway arches, hides not a nightmare or a monstrous troll…

The chugging of trains past and used vintage furniture shivers with the routine passing of people with places to go, people to meet. “Train terminates at this stop. All change please.”

And so I move in back with the parents. Home sweet home.

(**last 2 shots were taken on 120mm film on my Diana F+)

The last couple of days in London I spent café hopping. Absolutely love the cosy ambience of cafés, the smell of brewing coffee, the tins of imported tea leaves, the displays of fresh cakes and breads; and strangely, even folded paper napkins, sugar cubes and little milk jugs are a comforting sight to behold. But that’s just the outer layer of the lure of cafés. It’s the fact that time stands still. That everything beyond its walls (if it’s got any) ceases to encroach upon your space and your mind for a while. When you step into the dim interiors of one, with that soft lounge or jazz music playing, you shed the dusty coats of worry at the door. You enter a time capsule where you can be perfectly still or perfectly alone. With a book, with a hot cuppa, with something to eat, you are at ease and calm. I like that. Or maybe I’m just lazy and overly indulgent.

Bea’s of Bloomsbury
It was early morning. I had egg cravings. This was beaute. Buttery & creamy. Also, there’s a shelf of books, magazines, newspapers and flyers by the stairs. A cookbook on rustic fruit puddings kept me busy during my wait for food.

a smooth cappuccino and a curried egg & celery toasted muffin

Stopping by to admire Ladurée
The Burlington Arcade is quite a magical place. Placing Ladurée at its entrance is like icing on a cake. Stunning to look at and so enchanting, like a unicorn, you can almost not believe that it’s there. If everything were so pretty and gold-embossed!

Tapped & Packed
Dropped in to meet (finally) the groovy Supercharz. She was funny and so friendly, I almost forgot how good my coffee tasted.

love having all my stuff go ‘plonk’ on café tables

a final refresher – mint tea

Just before I left, a bespectacled dude joined me at my table. He flipped out a shiny macbook and ordered a cappuccino. Eyes trained on his laptop screen the whole time, he proceeded to dunk 5 heaping teaspoons of brown sugar into his little cuppa coffee. Stirring done, lick foamed milk off spoon, sip. Eyes still on laptop screen. I wasn’t sure if that was an artful and coordinated demonstration of a coffee-trained hand vs. attention distracted by laptop or a scene which made me feel a little too sickly sweet in my mouth.